Judgment Day
by BlaiddDrwg30
Summary: The Doctor intercepts a wayward distress call from Earth and Rebecca is discomforted when she learns that it is from her old hometown. The Doctor, Rose, and Rebecca investigate and get caught up in a battle involving the Judoon and an escaped war criminal. Meanwhile, Rebecca puts some demons from her past to rest.
1. Chapter 1

The Doctor rubbed his chin bewilderedly. "Now that's odd."

Rebecca looked up from the book she was reading. "What is?"

He stared at the Tardis monitor, apparently lost in thought.

She sighed and went back to her book.

He slammed his hand against the console, the loud bang causing her to jump up in alarm and drop the book to the floor.

"Never a dull moment around here," Rose exclaimed as she walked down the steps into the room. She picked up Rebecca's book and handed it to her with a smile. "You okay?"

Rebecca laughed. "Yeah, just startled me is all." She scooted over on the bench and Rose sat down next to her. She threw one of her legs over Rebecca's thigh and the dark haired girl smiled at her indulgently.

"A distress signal just came through," the Doctor said without looking up. "Rather suddenly, as a matter of fact."

"Where's it coming from? Rose asked.

His brow furrowed in concentration. "Actually, it's coming from Becks old neck of the woods."

Rebecca looked up. "It is?"

He pressed a few buttons, then looked back up at the screen. "Someplace about an hour or so from where we picked you up. Hamilton? Does that area sound familiar?"

When she didn't answer right away he turned around to glance at her, and was startled to see that she had turned frightfully pale. Her lips were compressed into a thin line and he could see her knuckles turning white as they clenched the side of the armrest.

"You okay?" Rose asked worriedly.

Rebecca cleared her throat. "Yes, I'm fine. I...in fact I grew up near there. My family still lives in that area."

"That's great," Rose said cheerily. "Maybe we can pop in on them when we go to check out the signal." She turned to the Doctor. "Are we going to investigate it?"

The Doctor continued to keep his eyes on Rebecca, who had gotten some of her color back but was now rubbing her forehead as if to dispel a headache. Something had obviously jolted her, and it didn't take a genius to see that it had to do with visiting her old hometown. He was worried about her. Still, he couldn't just ignore a distress call, especially one that was as encrypted and enigmatic as this one was. He would just have to keep a closer eye on her in this instance, make sure she was okay. He turned back to the controls and started adjusting the coordinates. "Yes, we certainly are. The signal came via an encrypted code, it wasn't specifically seeking the Tardis, we just happened to intercept it. Don't know if it's a friend or foe, so it should be pretty exciting to check it out, eh?"

"Yeah," Rebecca said quietly, "Exciting."

Later on, after Rebecca had gone to bed, Rose leaned against the railing watching the Doctor fix some wiring that had burnt out she asked, "has she said anything at all to you about her family?"

"Who?" the Doctor asked as he used the sonic screwdriver to melt a fused terminal.

Rose rolled her eyes. "Who do you think? Rebecca of course!"

His brow furrowed in concentration. "No. Can't say that she has."

"Don't you think that's strange? What if they're dead? I mean, having one parent dead is hard enough, but what if they're both gone? That's really sad, don't you think? Should we ask her?"

The Doctor stopped what he was doing and looked at her seriously. "Usually people's family comes up in conversation, yeah? Well, since she HASN'T brought them up, don't you think that means she doesn't want to talk about it?"

Rose bit her lip. "But we're her friends. I want her to know she can trust us."

He smiled. "Nothing says trust like hopping into a big blue time traveling box with a couple of strangers, eh? Don't think you need to worry about that. She trusts us."

Rose smiled at him.

"Ah well," he said as he turned back to his work. "It's probably not a big deal anyway. Her family situation, I mean. Not everyone likes to prattle on about their relatives like you do."

"Hey!" Rose exclaimed, smacking him lightly on the arm.

The Doctor passed by Rebecca's room on his way to bed. The door was closed, which was slightly unusual in an of itself, since for the most part she usually kept it open most of the time. He paused at her door. As much as he wanted to help her get through whatever she was feeling, he also didn't want to be too intrusive to her privacy, which was mostly why he advised Rose not to bring it up to her. But he still felt compelled to make sure she was alright. She was his companion, and he cared for her, for both her _and _Rose. And the thought of her being in any kind of distress hurt his hearts. He knocked softly on her door.

A moment later she answered, "Doctor?"

He smiled, even though she couldn't see it. "How did you know it was me?"

He heard a muffled laugh. "Because Rose doesn't knock, she just barges right in."

He chuckled. "So true. Very adamant, our Rose. I just wanted to make sure you were alright."

There was a pause and then the sound of sheets rustling. He assumed she was coming to the door. "I'm okay," she replied.

"Okay," he said, knowing she probably wasn't, but unsure of what else he could do for her at that moment. "Have a good night, Becks."

"You too Doctor."

He laid his hand and forehead against the door, wishing he could help her. After a few minutes he sighed softly and walked away.

Rebecca stood with her back against the opposite side of the same door, with her eyes closed, wishing she had enough inner strength to ask her friends for help.

~*~To be continued


	2. Chapter 2

For the first time since joining Rose and the Doctor, Rebecca felt a permeating sense of hollow dread when the Tardis doors opened. The usual sense of wonder and excitement hovered slightly in the background of her emotions but was overlaid with a dull terror. She was going home again. Or, at least, close enough to home to cause the same type of reaction. She had thought, for a split second or less, of admitting her uneasiness to the Doctor and asking if they could just pass this one up. Just this one time. For her. But she had seen how intrigued he was by the signal he had intercepted and she was reluctant to bring her misgivings to light. So she decided to tuck her feelings away, she was good at that after all, and make the best of the situation. And while she could tell that Rose didn't notice that anything was wrong, she was pretty sure the Doctor could see right through her.

The Tardis landed with the familiar wheezing, groaning sound on the corner of a long and narrow street. The Doctor opened the doors and stepped out into the late afternoon atmosphere, followed by a hesitant looking Rebecca.

The Doctor peered down the street "Recognize anything?" he asked Rebecca.

She looked around warily. It seemed familiar, but not so much that it set any alarm bells off in her head. Which was a good thing, in her opinion. The area looked like any other street where she had grown up. A typical little New Jersey town. "It is a bit familiar," she hedged. "Where exactly are we again?"

He held up a small colorful device with a crooked antenna. Heaven only knew where it came from. He pressed a button and spun a few dials before announcing, "Apparently we're in Trenton. The signal we picked up in the Tardis was emitted from only a few blocks away from this spot." He glanced over at Rebecca. "Do you know this place.?"

She nodded. "I grew up about twenty miles from here."

Rose pointed at the contraption in the Doctor's hand with lurid fascination. "Doctor, what on Earth **IS** that?"  
>He let out a laugh. "Ha! You mean what on not Earth is that?"<p>

She smiled and shrugged at him. "Same difference."

He gave it a little shake. "This happens to be a machine I created. It 'dings' when it gets close to any signal I have it locked on to. It can also turn rocks into caramels." He wrinkled his nose and glanced at the device. "Pretty unusual side effect, that."

He twirled another dial and held the machine up above his head, pointing the crooked antenna to the sky. The three of them waited in silence for a few months before...

It dinged.

Letting out a triumphant laugh the Doctor yelled out, "See? We're on the right track!" He marched down the street followed by Rose and Rebecca, who were trying to look less amused than they really were.

The sky was tinged purple and pink in the early morning. A few moths spun lazily in the air like tiny minuaturized ghosts. Rebecca took a deep breath, letting the familiar air of her childhood fill her lungs for the first time in months. _I'm a better person now,_ she thought confidently. _I'm stronger. What other people do or say or even think about me doesn't matter anymore._

Suddenly her phone rang.

The sound cut through her newfound confidence harshly like the shattering of glass. It felt like all the positive emotions that had just moments ago been flowing through her was seeping out of her from ever pore, deflating her mood right along with it. She knew who was calling.

The others turned around, noticing she had stopped in her tracks.

"Is that your phone?" Rose asked.

"Yeah," Rebecca replied as she pulled it out of her pocket.

"I don't think I've ever heard it ring before!" Rose mused. All this time we've been traveling together, and I don't think I've heard it go off once!"

"That's because I never altered it," the Doctor said.

The two girls looked at him.

"With the screwdriver," he continued. "I never altered the frequency with my sonic like I did with yours, Rose. We've been out of the signal range since we picked Becks up."

"Well, why didn't you alter it?" Rose asked. She looked from the Doctor back to Rebecca. "You knew he did it to my phone."

"Because she never asked me to," the Doctor said softly.

Rebecca looked up and met the Doctor's eyes and the gentle understanding in them let her know, for the first time, that he understood what it meant to want to run away. To flee from your past and keep on moving forward until it couldn't hurt you any longer. She felt a rush of gratitude toward him, this wonderful man who knew and understood so much.

The phone kept ringing.

Rose raised her eyebrow to her as if to ask, _'Well are you going to answer that or not?'_

She sighed and put the phone receiver to her ear and said, "Hello Mom."

She walked away to converse privately while Rose and the Doctor looked on.

"Is she okay?" Rose asked him quietly.

"Not right now she isn't." He glanced over at Rose and smiled. "But she will be."

She reached over and held his hand, both of them watching their friend with loving concern.

Rebecca paced the sidewalk while trying to end the conversation with her mother as quickly as possible, before the knot in here stomach grew so hard it would be permanently lodged there. She was being berated for not calling sooner, berated for her general alck of consideration for the rest of her family, and why couldn't she be more like her sister? Rebecca bit her lip and endured the tirade, knowing that it was better to just let her go rather than try to interject and defend herself. It wouldn't matter anyway. It wasn't as if she would believe her. When she told her that she had been traveling with a few friends her mother switched gears so fast it was enough to make Rebecca's head spin. Since she was in town, wouldn't she come up for dinner? It would give them time to catch up. It sounded nice, in theory anyway, but Rebecca knew better. As much as she might wish otherwise, this was nothing more than a ploy on her mothers part to dig out bits of information that could be later used against her daughter. She had been through this before. She bit back an almost hysterical laugh at the thought of explaining to her mother all the places she had seen while traveling with the Doctor.

She glanced up and saw the others looking at her.

Rose gave a small wave and an encouraging smile. The Doctor nodded to her.

She felt a trickle of bravery fill her up again. She could do this. "Sure mom," she said into the phone. "I'll be there."

She hung up and walked back over to her friends. "I have to go to dinner tonight," she said. "At my parents."

"What time do we have to be there?" Rose asked.

"Wait..." Rebecca asked. "We?

"Of course."'' Rose leaned over and tucked a tendril if hair behind Rebecca's ear. "What did you think, we were going to drop you off and leave you there on your own?"

_I've been alone my whole life,_ Rebecca thought desperately as tears of gratefulness sprang to her eyes. "I'd like that very much. Thank you guys."

Rose patted the Doctor's arm. "Even the Doctor's coming along, and he's absolute rubbish at family functions. He hates them! Don't you Doctor?"

He looked uncomfortable. "I never said I hated them...did I?"

"Oh yes," Rose said as Rebecca nodded. "Multiple times."

"I don't hate family functions," he said. "Weeeell hate is a strong word after all, although maybe not strong enough in some cases." The last part he said under his breath. "Still, you know what they say about home and family."

"What?" asked Rose.

He looked right at Rebecca. "Home is where the heart is."

He shook his machine. "Well, we better get going if we have a dinner date to get to. Let's see if we can find out what send that signal and why. That **IS** why we came here after all, if you two would recall."

He turned on his heel and continued down the street followed by a laughing Rose and a contemplative Rebecca.  
><em>Yes<em>, she thought happily. _It's time to stop running away._

_~*~ _To be continued


End file.
